Attorney for North Bergen rakes in huge salary and outsources work to private law firm where he works, report says

Jersey Journal file photoHerbert Klitzner, the attorney for North Bergen, is paid well above what most town attorneys earn and also outsources work to the private law firm where he has an office, according to a report in The Record. North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco (shown above) expressed "full trust and confidence" in Klitzner.

Courtesy of North Bergen taxpayers, attorney Herbert Klitzner earns a $214,104 yearly municipal salary, plus benefits, and gets to outsource hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of legal work every year to the Secaucus firm that pays him for part-time legal work, The Record reports today.

Klitzner's municipal salary -- which comes with a 30-hour workweek, eight weeks of paid time off, and promise of a six-figure pension when he retires -- is more than what the state attorney general is paid.

And according to a state legal ethics panel opinion given in 1995, there's nothing wrong with Klitzner, as the township government's top attorney, handing over some $600,000 in additional legal work to the Secaucus law firm of Chasan, Leyner & Lamparello as long as the outsourcing is approved by township officials, according to the story.

Klitzner is listed as an "of counsel" attorney on the law firm's letterhead and has an office at the firm, The Record reports.

At least $1.8 million went to the firm for hourly legal work between mid-2004 and January of this year, according to an analysis by The Record of invoices provided by North Bergen.

"I think he's kind of like his own standalone entity, just in terms of the legal end of things," Township Administrator Christopher Pianese told The Record.

Klitzner's status is apparently tied to his long-standing with relationship with the township's mayor since 1991, Nicholas Sacco.

The both began their careers in township government in 1985, Sacco as a township commissioner and Klitzner as a the township's attorney.

Klitzner represented Sacco's mother, Angelina, in 1990, and his aunt, Josephine Sacco in 1992 as plaintiffs in personal negligence lawsuits, according to The Record.

Sacco, who is also a state senator and assistant superintendent of the North Bergen school district, said in a statement to The Record that Klitzner has "our administration's full trust and confidence."